


days burning under the suns

by mintakablue



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 10:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13409166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintakablue/pseuds/mintakablue
Summary: Luke had always dreamed in colors brighter than the tan and beige deserts.





	days burning under the suns

            Luke had a little bit of a ritual after finishing another day of fixing vaporators and moisture farming—he would swipe the back of his hand against his forehead, feeling the beads of sweat that had formed there, and then step slowly, ever so slowly, into the blessed shade. He relished in the feeling of that, especially when his eyes were closed, the oppressive red searing his eyelids changing to a deep and almost dreamlike purple.

            There was only one good thing about those two suns and it was when they set. They would press down, unrelenting, on anything out on the sand, bleaching them steadily to the yellow-white of the sand. When they dipped low in the sky though, the color would return. As the suns descended below the horizon, the light changed and became wondrous. It drenched everything in gold, then rose, then purple. Almost close to that purple that one only saw when asleep. Luke would stare out into the distance quite often, but never so often as then.

He wished at times that they had a hydroponic garden like other moisture farmers, but instead, he would sit in the garage with his speeder, pretending that the sprockets and wires he used were strange plants that grew from inside the machines.

            Things grew in the desert, Luke knew that much. Succulents, their leaves laden with secret water. Cactuses, hiding their blooms until the time was just right. But could a person grow here, Luke would wonder, here in the sand and dust? Biggs, beautiful Biggs Darklighter, who was everything unattainable, told Luke about everything he had seen across the universe (or at least within the star system).

            It was Biggs who stretched himself out, relaxed yet somehow taut like a slingshot drawn back, and spoke easily of things Luke wished for so hard that his heart would ache. Biggs had been to a city where it rained all the time—a downpour that weighed upon him so that, upon returning to the ship, he filled a bathtub as he wrung out his clothes. Luke had laughed with Biggs then, so loud that it echoed around them, a whole room full of their laughter.

            Though Biggs filled his head with new ideas, Luke had always dreamed in colors brighter than the tan and beige deserts—he had once asked his uncle if he dreamt of anything but the farm and was surprised to learn that he hadn’t, didn’t even think it was something one would waste their time with. Now nineteen, Luke still dreamt those same vivid dreams.

            Sometimes it was him, speeding across the sand, other times, walking in a forest that smelled of everything growing and growing, towards the sky. But many times, he dreamed of an island. Those dreams were not the kind that would fade once you had woken—they stayed, a wondrous apparition that never quite disappeared. Luke had learned a rough binary language from the droids around the farm, so he would whistle—slowly, laboriously—to other droids who came and visited the stations. They had told him islands were all across the universe, that he would have to be more specific if he ever wanted to visit it. But the familiarity that Luke felt, the _pull_ that was so deep he thought it must be coming from somewhere deep inside him (the way wildflowers slept beneath the sand) was beyond binary, beyond the shape of any words.

            How much water was out there, in the whole universe? In his dreams, there was no end to it. Reverently, he would run his fingers across the surface of the water, before diving deep into it: through light blue, to deep green, to midnight ink. Like stepping into the shade, but a hundred times better. When he was younger a vaporator had burst and sprayed water, darkening and deepening everything that was sun-bleached. He turned his face upwards as it sprinkled down, as Aunt Beru rushed inside to find the repair droid. That must have been nothing compared to the rain on that distant planet Biggs has visited.

            But even the island had its dark side that shook Luke to his core. Those dreams stuck like the heat haze on the horizon. Sometimes his dreams were just him, peering into the darkness. A mouth open like a hungry beast, the yawning maw so terrifying it seemed to gut him simply by looking. It would be so easy to tumble downwards into it. To fall and fall and fall and not know you hit the bottom until your body jerked you awake, sweating.

            In spite of himself, Luke thought sometimes that to fall forever was better than to spend each monotonous day here.

            But he comforted himself with thinking that he could not be here on this planet, so far from the bright center of the universe, for much longer. He could always visit Aunt Beru. He would probably run into Biggs every now and then. If there was one thing he wished he could take with him, perhaps it would be the image of those suns when they became something close to beautiful.

            It would be a long time until Luke Skywalker saw that island—by then, his youth had been numbed by necessity into the Jedi Master he had become. His heart, that seemed to have been hammering ever since he left his burning temple, suddenly became calm as he faced the ocean he had dreamt of all those years ago. But the reason for why was still beyond his words and perhaps always would be—that nameless longing in him made by all those days burning under the suns.

**Author's Note:**

> luke's always been a character close to my heart and there's something so sad about watching him become this jaded old man after relating to him so much in a new hope. what happened to him?! in the end of the last jedi, he's still looking towards the horizon, but in totally different ways.


End file.
